OCTune - nicehash/NiceHashQuickMiner GitHub Wiki

IMPORTANT! From version 0.4.5.0, you need to provide auth token when operating with OCTune to modify settings (write access). If no auth token or invalid auth token is provided, then GPU stats can only be viewed and not modified (read access). Auth token is saved in nhqm.conf as "watchDogAPIAuth". Complete URL is automatically created if you open OCTune using NiceHash QuickMiner taskbar tray context menu and choosing OCTune. octuneurl

Index

1. Finding most efficient or the fastest combination of OC values for your card(s) - classic long path 2. Alternative overclocking explained 3. EXPERIMENTAL Autotune - very fast automatic OC tuning - 95% max efficiency guaranteed within 5 minutes! 4. Access OCTune in LAN or VPN

1. Finding most efficient or the fastest combination of OC values for your card(s)

When using Alternative Overclocking the procedure is simpler! It is suggested to use Alternative Overclocking if possible, because you have to deal only with two variables instead of three. Alternative Overclocking does not work on Pascal based cards (GTX 1080, 1070 and 1060). Alternative Overclocking is explained under 2.

Use OCTune. Look for value UMed KT. Your goal is to get this value as low as possible. What is the meaning of these values? KT = Kernel Time. It is execution time of code running on GPU in microseconds. Min = minimal time (in previous X runs), Avg = average time, UMed = upper median (3/4). Min can sometimes drop down to half of usual - you should ignore these values.

1. Find your max memory clock First, you should find your max memory speed or determine at what memory speed you are prepared to run your GPU. Higher power limit and lower core clock can help memory stability. Therefore, set power limit to some high value (can be at 100% of your TDP - note the value needs to be in Watts!) and core clock to -600. Then increase memory clock by 25 each step and test at least several minutes. There should be no HW err and make sure there are at least 3 accepted shares on that card (HW ok increases by 3 at that speed). Once you find your max memory clock, you can go to step 2.

2. Reduce power limit Now you can start reducing power limit. At some point, UMed KT starts rising. That is a sign that you need to back off and stop reducing power limit (temporary). Now you need to increase core clock. Go to step 3.

3. Increase core clock Increase core clock +25 at a time until your UMed KT stop improving (value doesn't go lower anymore). Note that higher core clock can affect stability of your memory. You may have to decrease your memory clock if there are rejected shares (share above target) and value in HW err increases. Once you find ideal core clock, you can again try with reducing power limit.

4. Play with settings to achieve best KT values You have to fiddle with core clock, memory clock and power limit until you find best KT values (lowest) and max stability (no shares above target - HW err stays at 0). Once you find best values, you will have the highest possible speed. You can save your OC configuration (click Save current configuration) so it will be applied next time Excavator is started.

2. New OCTune (v0.3.0.4+) with alternative overclocking abilities

With version 0.3.0.4 alternative overclocking ability was added to NiceHash QuickMiner. With this method, you only need to provide two values to optimize your mining efficiency:

  • absolute max core clock of video card,
  • absolute memory clock of VRAM and
  • fan speed (optional).

For comparison, UI is displayed here (1 is old classic method, 2 is new alternative method): OCTune Alt OC

There are some differences and rules:

  • You cannot use both OC methods at the same time. Whichever method is used last is applied and saved in commands.json (if wanted).
  • Alternative OC resets TDP to default value of 100%. Your power limit entirely depends on configured core clock and memory clock of your video card.
  • There is minimal core clock (210) for all cards.
  • Alternative OC may not work on all NVIDIA series cards (but works confirmed on series 3000 and 2000).
  • Alternative OC is the only way to optimize Quadro and Tesla series as these cards do not support changing delta core and delta memory clocks.

Guide how to optimize your card using alternative OC (only about 5 min of time per card needed)

First, find max stable memory clock of VRAM. Generally, following memory clocks can be achieved on most of video cards:

GPU Model Absolute memory clock Delta memory clock
3060 Ti 7900 +1100
3070 7900 +1100
3080 10300 +850
3090 10350 +850

If you are getting rejected shares of type Share above target then your memory clock is not stable and you have to reduce it. But generally, if you get one or two bad shares of such type per day, it is still okay.

Once you find max stable memory clock, start with high Core clock limit (like 1800 for example) and start decreasing it, observing Speed (MH/s), Power Real (W) and Eff. (kH/J) (efficiency).

If you want highest possible speed

After each decrease of Core clock limit, check values Min KT, Avg KT and UMed KT. These values should go as low as possible. The lower they are, the better speed you have. Once you are happy with the achieved speed, you can save your OC configuration by pressing Save current configuration button at the top. Note that if you change your memory clock, you'd need to readjust Core clock limit but usually not for much (perhaps only +15 or -15).

If you want highest possible efficiency (recommended)

Highest possible efficiency makes your video card use less electricity, produce less heat and wear&tear while still maintaining almost max possible speed. Here, you should do reverse, start with lowest Core clock limit and increase +15 at a time. Observe how KT values are falling down. At one point, you will notice that KT values do not change much with further increases of Core clock limit. That is the time to stop. Job done. You can save your OC configuration now.

While testing few cards, we managed to achieve following numbers:

GPU Model Absolute memory clock Core clock limit Power consumption (W) Speed (MH/s) Efficiency (kH/J)
3060 Ti 7950 1350 120 60 500
3070 7950 1050 117 60 513
3090 10401 1080 286 117 411

3. EXPERIMENTAL Autotune

Autotune takes user's input - Memory clock (absolute) and determines optimal Core clock limit so you get best speed or efficiency. The result could still be further tweaked for perhaps additional 1% of performance or efficiency, but considering that Autotune does everything automatically and very fast (just one iteration through viable core clock limits simultaneously testing for performance), there is serious question whether additional tweaking is even worth your time.

Autotune works through alternative OC method introduced in version 0.3.0.4. Besides providing absolute memory clock, user provides starting core clock and ending core clock limit. The smaller the interval, the less iterations are needed thus the algorithm can finish faster. But providing too small interval means you may "miss out" the possible better OC configuration. If you are a beginner, we suggest leaving these values intact and only start modifying them once you gain some experiences so you know what to expect from each video card.

Unfortunately, due to API limitations of NVIDIA management libraries, Alternative OC and Autotune features are available only for RTX series (2000 and 3000). Since Alternative OC works for Quadro and Tesla cards (as long as Memory clock is not changed), we expect Autotune to work for these cards as well, but we were not able to test that yet.

Autotune works much better on video cards that do not have display connected. If you have a chance to (at least temporary) connect display through another card (perhaps integrated one?), then we suggest doing so, because your results will be much better.

You might be wondering what kind of values to use for Memory clock. I have prepared some classification of low, medium and high clocks. You should start with low and then move onto medium and high if everything is working stable.

GPU Model Default memory clock Low memory clock Medium memory clock High memory clock
3060 Ti, 3070 6800 7500 7900 8100
3080 9250 9800 10300 10500
3090 9500 10000 10400 10600

For 2000 series cards, I believe you can use values written for 3060 Ti and 3070 as they all use same type of memory (GDDR6). Start with Low memory clocks and run Autotune to get best core clock limit. Then run this configuration for at least one day. If nothing crashes. Great, try with medium memory clock and repeat. Most of video cards should be able to handle clocks from medium class. But you may be unlucky (silicon lottery).

4. Access OCTune in LAN or VPN

You can configure OCTune to be accessible over LAN or VPN thus getting access to local Excavator from remote computer. You can can enable this by performing following modifications:

Version 0.4.5.0 and above

  1. Determine local IP of the mining rig - for example, we assume the IP is 192.168.1.22.
  2. Edit config file nhqm.conf; change "watchDogAPIHost" : "localhost" to "watchDogAPIHost" : "192.168.1.22".
  3. Restart NiceHash QuickMiner. Open OCTune via NiceHash QuickMiner context menu. The URL displayed in the browser bar can be used on other machines in LAN and have full access to OCTune. If no auth token is provided, then only read-access is provided.

octuneurl

Version 0.4.1.3

  1. Determine local IP of the mining rig - for example, we assume the IP is 192.168.1.22.
  2. Edit config file nhqm.conf; change "watchDogAPIHost" : "localhost" to "watchDogAPIHost" : "192.168.1.22".
  3. Edit config file nhqm.conf; find "launchCommandLine". By default, this string has value "-qx -qm -wp 18000 -d 2 -f 6". Add -wi 192.168.1.22 so the modification is then: "launchCommandLine" : "-qx -qm -wp 18000 -d 2 -f 0 -wi 192.168.1.22".
  4. Open octune\octune.js with Notepad or any other preferred text editor (note, if you have installed NiceHash QuickMiner in Program Files folder, you will need Administrator privileges to modify files in that folder, so open your text editor as Administrator). Modify first line from var url = "http://localhost:18000/"; to var url = "http://192.168.1.22:18000/";.
  5. Restart NiceHash QuickMiner. When starting up, Windows Firewall dialog will pop-up asking for permission to Excavator. Click Allow Access.
  6. When you want to access OCTune from remote computer, just copy octune folder with all the files inside to the remote computer from where you would like to have access. Open octune.html in your browser and it will connect to Excavator running on 192.168.1.22. Any computer in the same subnet is going to have access.

Therefore, if you have more mining rigs, you can configure to have access to OCTune of all of your rigs from one PC. In theory, you could make this work even over internet, but we do not recommend doing it, because it is risky and makes you vulnerable - Excavator does not have adequate security methods implemented to offer API over internet. If you would like to have access to remote location rigs, we suggest you to establish VPN and then configure each rig as described in points from 1 to 6.